PITCH WITH YOUR BODY

The best short game players in the world all have the same things in common, soft hands, great instincts and a good understanding that short shots are quite simply miniature full swings. The fundamentals that must apply in good pitching are keeping your weight slightly left, keeping the body turning towards the target through impact as well as keeping connected – upper and lower body in sync.

Poor pitchers of the golf ball are quite often out of sync during the downswing and through the ball, resulting in poor contact and poor distance control.

The normal things that happen to poor pitchers of the golf ball are –

They freeze the upper body in the downswing leading to an overactive lower body.

They don’t use there lower body and dominate the swing with the upper body

Weight falls onto the back foot.

Or they get handsy in their delivery of the club to the ball.

All of the above will make sure of one certain thing – poor contact and poor distance control.

When pitching try and keep the movement fluid and flowing, imagine some of your favourite golfer’s tempo’s and keep that in mind. This will help you keep everything synchronised and moving correctly. Feel as if you are using your big muscles – shoulders, chest, hips and especially the thighs to control the pitching motion.

Use the length of swing and loft of your wedges to regulate the distances – hip to hip swing, chest to chest swing and shoulder to shoulder swing. If you carry 3 wedges then you have 3 distances with each wedge, 9 in total.

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

PS. Come down and tee it up to make some magic moments of your own. Check our website at

A way that pitching is still commonly taught is to stand way open with the ball deep back in your stance to promote a descending blow resulting in a ball turf strike.

If this is your way of pitching be careful as this will more often than not cause you to swing left down your body line, cutting across the ball promoting excessive side spin. I often find that golfers who pitch with the ball deep back in there stance will tend to favour the weight back too, resulting in a scooping action creating thin and very heavy shots.

“With the help of flightscope launch monitor and video we can now work closely with the player to get the maximum accuracy and control on these shots”

The modern approach to playing pitch shots is to stand square to the ball as this promotes many good qualities that good pitchers have –

They use the bounce of the club so the leading edge does not dig in creating heavy shots.

They stand square to the target line to promote a good swing path for greater accuracy.

They play the ball forward in their stance to promote the correct angle of attack to maximise spin control.

Their weight favors their target side and stays there throughout the shot creating the good ball turf bruising strike.

They have a shallow angle of attack.

Ball forward in stance for a good angle of attack with the weight
on the left side.

Body Alignment parallel to target line for a better swing path.

A great way to practise pitching is to put a work station down so you can practise more effectively from a good square set.

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

PS. Come down and tee it up to make some magic moments of your own. Check our website at

Become a Great Short Game Player

Long Game is important in golf because if you can’t find the fairway from the tee box you are always chasing and trying to catch up on your second shot.

However short game is also very important in golf and I believe for the best part of golfers worldwide, that improving this part of your game is a must, especially if you want lower scores and handicaps!!

Short game starts from within 100 yards of the green and this is the area we are going to concentrate on in this blog.

There is a lot of misconception when watching the best players on TV, especially as the cameras concentrate on the leaders and players hitting great shots. Of course the Top 10 or so players in the field are playing exceptionally good golf; otherwise they would not be in the chase of winning the event!!

So the big question is “how close do we need to be hitting our approach wedges, bunker shots and chips?”

Firstly let’s take a look chipping from around the edge of the green.

Chip Shots from the Fringe

A top ranked PGA Tour player will on average hit his chip shots from the fringe to within 2 to 3 feet from the hole. They will then proceed to make the putt 95% – 99% of the time which keeps there scores low.

How many of you achieve this from the Fringe?

Greenside Pitching from within 20 – 30 Yards (from the rough)

When a top ranked PGA Tour player misses a green in regulation and has to play from the rough, within 20 – 30 yards of the green, they will on average get the ball up and down to save par 58 % of the time. They will roughly end up somewhere between 6ft to 8ft from the hole from this area.

Are you within this category?

10 – 20 Yard Greenside Bunker Shots

A top ranked player of the PGA Tour will hit there bunker shots from around the green to within 7ft and 9ft of the hole. This is from all types of lies and sand conditions etc. They will then go on to hole the putt 53% of the time.

How good are you from this Range?

Greenside Pitch Shots

Did you know that when a top ranked PGA Tour player misses the green and is left with a Pitch Shot of around 20 – 35 yards, they will on average get the ball up and down 60% of the time?

They will regularly pitch it in to around 8ft of the hole most times.

Wedge Shots from 50 yards to 75 yards

From a distance of 50 yards to 75 yards a top ranked PGA Tour Player will pitch it to within 7ft to 12ft of the hole. If they are pitching from out of the rough then the distance they pitch to on average is within 15ft of the hole as there is less control on the ball. They will go on to hole an average of anywhere between 30% – 50% of their putts from there.

Approach Wedge Shots 75 to 100 Yards

In this distance range a top ranked PGA tour player will hit his shot 75 to 100 yard approach wedge shots to within 12ft to 16ft of the pin consistently. They will go on to hole on average between 20% to 30% of their putts.

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

PS. Come down and tee it up to make some magic moments of your own. Check our website at

Pitching – What Technique to Use

Professional’s and Elite Amateur golfers will all having a Pitching system that they use to pitch with great precision and accuracy. That should be no different from the rest of us!!

In this video I am showing you 3 different pitching systems that some of the world’s best short game artists use, once you have found a system that works well for you, I would like you to practise and practise it until you get to know your yardages.

You will be so much more confident in this area of the game and that only means one thing, Lower Scores!!

Go ahead and make someone’s day share this tip with a friend!

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

PS. Come down and tee it up to make some magic moments of your own. Check our website at

Chipping Address Position

A lot of golfers struggle in getting the chipping set up correct, which can lead to a lot of poor shots from around the green. Many golfers who come along for chipping lessons are under the impression of ‘the stance must be open, ball must be back in the stance and the hands must be way forward’. This unfortunately leads to poor swing paths, steep angles of attack and utilising the leading edge of the club rather than the bounce leaving no room for margin of error. This will lead to a lot of inconsistent shots, thin and heavy and off centre strikes.

How I like to see golfers set up to the ball for a straight forward chip shot from around the green is as follows –

Keep the ball position just inside the left heel with the shaft angle almost straight up from the ball, I don’t mind if it leans a tiny bit towards the target, but not excessively. I would be happy if the top of the grip was in line with the centre of the ball. Keep your weight 60% on the left side and pivot around that point. Your spine angle should be straight up, not tilting away from the target which is another trait of a poor chipper.

The body alignment should be parallel to the target line as we want to promote a swing path that goes down the target line, not cut across it!! An open stance would promote you to cut across the ball, putting side spin on the ball. A stance that is parallel will help you swing the club down the target line promoting pure back spin so the ball will check a little then roll out on your desired line. Posture should be athletic and your distance to the ball should be quite close to help with the down the target line swing path. Keep the clubface square throughout the shot even long into the follow through as this will help achieve a great consistent ball roll.

I hope you enjoyed the article, any comments or Questions then please leave a comment below..

Pitching Distance Control

Controlling your wedge distances are a lot easier than you may think, all of my students will have a process that they follow that controls there pitching distances with Pro style control.

Firstly if you carry 3 wedges, which is the norm these days, especially as PW lofts are getting stronger 45 degrees there is quite a large gap if your next wedge is 56 degrees. Most players will carry a wedge formation of PW, 50 degree, 54 degree and 58 degree wedges. This article is based on controlling your distances with these wedges and knowing the numbers that they go (yards) will most certainly help your short game.

If we work on the basis that each wedge will potentially have 3 yardages in them then carrying 4 wedges will give you a 12 shot yardage system.

The below box is an example of the wedges and the 3 yardages they fly with the controlled length swings.

Swing Length

PW

50 degree

54 degree

58 degree

Hip High

57 yards

49 yards

42 yards

35 yards

Chest High

97 yards

81 yards

64 yards

51 yards

Shoulder High

129 yards

112 yards

92 yards

74 yards

If we look at the first distance (shortest distance) in each wedge, how I am controlling this is by swinging the hands to hip high in the backswing and to hip high in the forward swing, keeping the wrist’s very quiet. This gives you the first set of yardages with my wedges. You need to hit each wedge and measure out the distance with a range finder to be exact.

The second distance is by swinging the hands to chest high in the backswing and to chest high in the forward swing, again keeping the wrists quiet. This gives you the second yardages with all of your wedges.

Chest High to Chest High

The third distance is where you swing your hands to shoulder height in the backswing and to shoulder height in the forward swing again keeping the wrists quiet. This will give you your third set of yardages with all of your wedges.

Shoulder High to Shoulder High

Once you have this in place make a note of your yardages and keeping referring to them when out playing on the course as this will certainly help improve this specific area of your game.

I hope you enjoyed the article, any comments or Questions then please leave a comment below..

This is an article for Play Better Golf magazine that I wrote on pitching and distance control. One of many ways to control your distances more effectively. Employing a strict pitching routine will really help you tighten up and tidy up the short game, as we all know this is where the scoring comes into play. Many pros practise the short game for hours on end, but the typical amateur will not spend any time on this area of the game, spend at least a few hours a month on this part of your game and your scoring will improve dramatically. Click here to view on of my short game programmes.